The Wyoming Heir by Naomi Rawlings

Author:Naomi Rawlings
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

“What happened back there?”

Elizabeth’s bottom had barely touched the carriage seat before Luke asked his question.

What had happened? She pressed her shaking fingers to her temples. She wasn’t sure. Mother had deceived her and arranged an engagement to David. Father had a mistress—which evidently wasn’t a shock to anyone but her. And David had proposed.

No it wasn’t just a proposal. David had offered to help her family out of their current disastrous situation if she married him. The hard timbre of his voice as he made his offer resonated through her memory.

“Elizabeth?” Luke’s fingers, firm but warm, took her chin and lifted it up until their eyes met.

She pulled back and sank deeper into the carriage seat. If only she could be home. In her own bed, that sat in her own room, that was part of her own house, surrounded by her own soothing things, in the comfortable world she’d created for herself.

She would be there in a little over an hour. She just had to endure the ride home with Luke first.

The carriage lamp burned above them, casting the inside of the conveyance in a soft orange glow. She shrank farther away from Luke. Why did it have to be lit? Darkness had cloaked their ride back to Valley Falls after the banquet, but now he could see everything about her, from her dirty clothes to her falling hair to the tears brimming in her eyes.

She shouldn’t be in the carriage with him at all. David had been right in that respect. She’d get in trouble if someone at the academy found out she’d ridden alone with Luke Hayes, and David would likely announce her lack of propriety to the world if doing so served his purposes. But still, letting Luke, with all his assessing looks and uncomfortable questions, escort her home seemed a small difficulty compared to walking back inside her parents’ house.

The carriage wheels clattered against Albany’s cobbled roads. Snorts, groans, creaks and shouts from all manner of conveyance, beast and persons echoed through the space she and Luke shared, but the noise from outside didn’t thwart the quiet that lingered between them.

She looked down at her hands, curled atop the soft brown leather of his duster, and settled deeper inside the warmth it offered. The scents of sunshine and grass and Luke Hayes clung to the material, as though she need only close her eyes and she could be with him in some Wyoming meadow, the sun beating down upon her back and wildflowers surrounding her. So very far away from the chaos her life had become.

“Elizabeth?”

She glanced up. Luke leaned forward, his eyes intent upon her face, probably still waiting to hear what had happened that evening. She could evade, of course. Change the subject or flat-out refuse to speak of the evening. Except she couldn’t ride the entire way to Valley Falls with his gaze boring into her and silence strangling the air.

“My family...” she started, but tears welled up to choke her throat.

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